Weekly News (Nov. 18-22)

I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is just around the corner and that we are already one third of the way through our kindergarten year.  My how time is flying by!  It's amazing to see how much the children have grown in such a short time.  I am so proud of all they have already accomplished! 

Math
This week in math we completed our teen number books.  The children have been doing a great job understanding the concept of the teens as "ten plus some more."  The final number in our counting book was 20, which led us into a great discussion of counting by 10's.  Our goal for the end of the year will be to count by 10's up to 120.  Based on some of the activities and games we played this week to practice counting by 10's, I can see the children are well on their way to accomplishing this goal!  The children also made turkey books this week titled "Five Little Turkeys" that helped them practice both their reading and counting backward skills.  They LOVED making these books!

Jolly Phonics
We spent some time reviewing all of the Jolly Phonics sounds that we have learned thus far.  We will begin learning the sounds from Book #6 when the students return from Thanksgiving break.  The students also enjoyed a Jolly Phonics video that helped the children learn about word families and rhyming words such as: hop, top, and pop.

Literacy
This week the children brought home a new sight word book to add to their plastic baggies.  We highlighted our newest sight word, go, and practiced reading with good expression while looking at the punctuation marks.  We also practiced our handwriting while we learned how to write the letters Xx and Qq.  The students also wrote acrostic name poems this week like the one below.  They did an unbelievable job stretching out the words for their poems and drawing portraits of themselves to go with their poems.  They are on display in the hallway outside our classroom.

Kind
Active
Tennis
Eggs

The children also brought home their November Song sheets to add to their "Poetry and Song" folders. Click here to listen to the afternoon class singing it one last time!

Close Reading Lesson
With the moon at its fullest last weekend, it provided us with a great opportunity to read Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes.  We talked about Kevin Henkes and how he writes and illustrates his stories, which led us into a great discussion about how the words and pictures in a book work together to tell the story.  The children did an amazing job talking about Kitten and discussing with a partner some of the events that happened.  We also had a great conversation about how sometimes a character in a story does something, which causes something else to happen---a beginning introduction to the concept of "cause and effect."  I was amazed at the level of the students' engagement with the text and their ideas and responses as we discussed the story.  It was great to see!

Gobble!  Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving to All

from the Students in K-2 and K-4

Weekly News (Nov. 11-15)

Even though it was a short week, it was a busy one!  Please pardon the abbreviated blog post this week.  I have been keeping busy working on progress reports and preparing for parent-teacher conferences.  I am looking forward to meeting with all of you!

Math

Counting by 10's up to 100.

Jolly Phonics
This week we learned the following sounds:
Vv as in "van"
oo as in "book"
oo as in "moon"

Please note that there are two different sounds for "oo."  The children also enjoyed watching a Jolly Phonics that reviewed all of the sounds the children learned in Book #5.

Literacy
The children enjoyed listening to several stories this week related to fall and Thanksgiving.  They also learned the sight word "go" and brought home a new sight word book that highlighted three different types of punctuation--a period, a question mark, and an exclamation point.  The children continued to practice their handwriting this week and did Writer's Workshop.  They also learned about acrostic poems and wrote their own acrostic poems for the the word THANKFUL.

Centers

Franklin's Thanksgiving

Roll-a-Turkey

Graphing fall foods

Practicing our teamwork and collaboration skills

Pattern blocks, counting, and cooperation

Thanks for reading!

Weekly News (Nov. 4-8)

Math
We used the interactive white board this week to solve addition and subtraction number stories similar to the one below.  We used the words "more" and "less" to help us understand the concepts of adding and subtracting. 

The students also practiced sequencing the numbers from 0-20 using a set of number cards that they had to put in order.  The children did a great job with this activity, especially with those teens numbers! In our number book this week, we learned about the numbers 14 and 15.  We continue to reinforce the concept that the teen numbers are made up of a ten "plus some more."  The children also learned a new game this week called the "Train Game."  In this game, the children roll a die and count out that number of cubes.  They attach the cubes in a line to form a train, then they figure out how many more cubes they need to make a group of ten.  They roll again and add more cubes to their train, figuring out each time how many more cubes they need to make a ten.

Click the link below to play a variation of the Train Game that involves adding and subtracting train cars.

http://media.emgames.com/emgames/demosite/playdemo.html?activity=M1A041&activitytype=dcr

Jolly Phonics
We began Book #5 in Jolly Phonics this week.  The children learned the sounds and motions for the following letters:

Zz as in "zoo"
Ww as in "wind"
ng as in "sing"

Thank you so much for all your support at home with our Jolly Phonics notebooks.  Please keep practicing the sounds we have learned.  The extra time practicing really pays off when the children are reading and writing.  The short vowels and double letter sounds are trickier and could use some extra practice!

Literacy
This week we introduced the sight word "see."  We highlighted the new word in our sight word books and brought them home earlier in the week.  Please add this book to your child's plastic baggie.  We read several books with a bat theme this week including: Stellaluna, Bats Around the Clock, and Fantastic Bats.  Before reading our bat books, we completed a graphic organizer together as a class that listed our ideas about what bats can do, what bats have, and what bats are.  Later in the week we added new ideas that we learned and modified some of our original thinking about bats.  Take a peek at some of our thinking below!

The children were also able to watch the movie version of Stellaluna, which made for some great conversation as we made comparisons between the book and the movie.  The afternoon class also welcomed a guest reader this week.  Kelsey's dad read Bear's Loose Tooth by Karma Wilson, which the children loved!  I know Karma Wilson's books will become some of our class favorites after we do an author study on her series of Bear books later this year.  The children also enjoyed a beautifully illustrated book called Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns in recognition of the Islamic New Year.

The children were busy with their handwriting this week as well, as they learned how to write the letters Jj, Pp, and Rr.  Our goal is to be finished learning all the letters by Thanksgiving break!

Social Studies
The children also learned about the upcoming Veteran's Day holiday on Monday.  We talked about what it means to be a veteran, and we made cards that will be delivered to veterans in honor of their service.

The children began learning about Thanksgiving during centers this week while listening to a nonfiction book about Thanksgiving.  They also strengthened their fine motor skills by creating a turkey craft project this week.  Our new turkeys have really brightened up our room!

Centers
While the children were working in centers this week, I was meeting with students in their small guided reading groups.  I was also able to do some assessing this week for report cards.  I was assessing the students in the following areas: identification of upper and lowercase letters, letter sounds, sight words, number recognition up to 31, shapes, counting up to 100 by 1's and 120 by 10's, counting a collection of objects, and pattern recognition.  The students worked in the following centers this week.

Playing Monster Squeeze on the iPads

Sound blending and reading on the computers

Listening to a nonfiction book about Thanksgiving

Working as a team to assemble a puzzle

Hunting for sight words

And finally...showing our Dolphin Pride!

Have a great weekend!

Weekly News (Oct. 28-- Nov. 1)

We had a great week learning and celebrating Halloween.  Take a peek below to find out about our week!

Math

We worked some more with the "tricky teens" this week.  We practiced writing the number 13 and talked about how 13 is a ten plus three more.  We used pictures to help us understand the concept of place value while focusing on the tens and ones.  For example, in  the number 13 there is 1 ten and 3 ones.  The children also practiced counting and identifying numbers up to 20.  The November calendar went home this week as well.  Please find a spot at home to display the calendar and have your child trace the number for each day.  We also reviewed some of our shapes this week when we made our own scarecrows.  The shapes that we focus on in kindergarten include: rectangle, square, triangle, circle, oval, and diamond.  Friday was an exciting day in kindergarten as we celebrated our 50th day of school!!  Not only were the children excited that we were able to bundle another group of 10 on our place value chart, they were thrilled when one of the students realized that we were officially halfway to the 100th day of school.  What a great observation!!

Jolly Phonics
This week we completed Book #4 in Jolly Phonics.  We learned the following sounds this week:

ie as in "tie"
ee as in "see"
or as in "for"

We also watched a Jolly Phonics video to review all the sounds that were introduced in Book #4.

Literacy
This week we enjoyed several great stories during read aloud time including--The Story of Pumpkin, The Scarecrow's Hat, and The Biggest Pumpkin Ever.  We also had two guest readers this week. Olivia's mom read Froggy Learns to Swim to the morning class, which was a funny story about how Froggy learned how to swim by singing a silly tune.  In the afternoon, Ella's mom read a great story called The Juice Box Bully, which was a wonderful compliment to our Character Counts program.  

I met with the students in guided reading groups this week as well, so your child should have a new book in their book bag.  The students also received a new sight word book to add to their sight word baggie and a copy of the October Song to add to their poetry folder as well.  Click here to listen to the morning kindergarten class singing the October Song. 


Centers
In centers this week, the children listened to a Halloween inspired story called The Hallo-Wiener and practiced their sequencing skills by putting the steps of a pumpkin's life cycle in order.  They also used Unifix cubes to measure an assortment of objects, and they played a game called "Domino Parking Lot," which required the students to count all of the dots on our domino "cars" and park them in the the appropriate parking spots.  This activity not only provided an opportunity for students to practice their counting skills, it also provided them with foundational practice for understanding addition and math facts.  Using the dominos with different combinations of dots, the students were able to see that different combinations can have the same total.  For example, a domino with 6 dots and 1 dot could be parked in the same spot with a domino that had 5 dots and 2 dots.  For a simple game, there was lots of learning going on!  

Happy Halloween 2013
The rain couldn't keep us down!  We had a great Halloween parade and celebration.  Be sure to click the link below to see some photos from Halloween!

Click here to see some Halloween photos.

Enjoy!